Clams casino

For the hip hop producer, see Clams Casino (musician)

Clams casino over rock salt with lemon and parsley garnish

Clams casino is a clam "on the halfshell" dish with breadcrumbs and bacon.^[1] It originated in Rhode Island in the United States.^[2] It is often served as an appetizer in New England and is served in variations nationally.

Ingredients

The dish uses littlenecks or cherrystone clams.^[3] Other basic ingredients include butter, peppers, bacon and garlic.^[4][5] Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper, white wine, lemon juice, and shallots or onion are also used.^[6] Tabasco sauce is sometimes added, and parsley is sometimes used as a garnish.

Preparation

The clams, bacon, and other ingredients are cooked in various ways depending on the recipe, and then added with breading to half the clam shell and baked or broiled (grilled from above) to a golden brown.^[7]

The dish is popular with Italian-Americans,^[6] having "a permanent spot on just about every trattoria menu" in Little Italy, Manhattan,^[5] and is considered an American classic.^[8][9] Clams casino is often served at Italian festivals^[10] and during the holidays^[6] in the United States.

There are many variations on the dish,^[10] but the constant factor is the bacon: "Bacon remains the major key to its success",^[9] with some chefs recommending smoked bacon for its salty flavor and others advocating an unsmoked variety.

History

According to legend, clams casino was developed in 1917 in the Little Casino in Narragansett, Rhode Island, by a maître d'hôtel for a woman of means wanting something special for her guests.^[9][11][12] Good Housekeeping Great American Classics attributes the dish to Mrs. Paran Stevens and maître d'hôtel Julius Keller.^[11] She named the dish after the hotel, and word and popularity of the dish has since spread across the United States, including New Orleans, where oysters are substituted for clams.^[9] Clams casino remains a very popular dish in Rhode Island, "appearing on almost every menu".^[2]

"In the first decades of this century (20th), if a restaurant wanted to be noted, it came up with a dish that involved the baking of shellfish".^[13] While there was a profusion of this type of menu offering (often with the meat taken out of the shell prepared with sauce and returned to the shell), clams casino and oysters Rockefeller "are among the few surviving dishes from the shellfish fad".^[13]

See also

• List of bacon dishes
• Clams oreganata

References

1. ^ Ruth Reichl, John Willoughby, Zanne Early Stewart The Gourmet Cookbook: More Than 1000 Recipes Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2006 ISBN 061880692X, 9780618806928 1056 pages page 50 The Gourmet Cookbook
2. ^ ^{a b} Linda Beaulieu The Providence and Rhode Island Cookbook: Big Recipes from the Smallest State Globe Pequot, 2005 ISBN 0762731370, 9780762731374 253 pages page 64 [1]
3. ^ Beaulieu, Linda (2005). The Providence and Rhode Island Cookbook: Big Recipes from the Smallest State. Globe Pequot. p. 64. ISBN 9780762731374. http://books.google.com/books?id=z-hBRxmHGLsC. 
4. ^ Scott-Goodman, Barbara (2005). The Beach House Cookbook. Chronicle. p. 20. ISBN 9780811843089. http://books.google.com/books?id=maNJ9l0bJHkC. 
5. ^ ^{a b} Boulud, Daniel; Dorie Greenspan, Martha Stewart (1999). Daniel Boulud's Cafe Boulud Cookbook: French-American Recipes for the Home Cook. Simon and Schuster. p. 216. ISBN 9780684863436. http://books.google.com/books?id=NPvDkqXecdMC. 
6. ^ ^{a b c} Stella, George (2005). George Stella's Livin' Low Carb: Family Recipes Stella Style. Simon and Schuster. pp. 148–49. ISBN 9780743269971. http://books.google.com/books?id=28IWk0vkX_4C. 
7. ^ Nenes, Michael F.; Joe Robbines (2006). American Regional Cuisine. John Wiley and Sons. p. 18. ISBN 9780471682943. http://books.google.com/books?id=pRHs9jv6enkC. 
8. ^ Moonen, Rick; Roy Finamore. Fish Without a Doubt: The Cook's Essential Companion. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 280. ISBN 9780618531196. http://books.google.com/books?id=BffVNW2CuVEC. 
9. ^ ^{a b c d} Villas, James; Andrea Grablewski (2007). The Bacon Cookbook: More Than 150 Recipes from Around the World for Everyone's Favorite Food. John Wiley and Sons. p. 36. ISBN 9780470042823. http://books.google.com/books?id=7kZE9e511W4C. 
10. ^ ^{a b} Thompson, Fred (2006). The Big Book of Fish & Shellfish: More Than 250 Terrific Recipes. Chronicle. p. 235. ISBN 9780811849258. http://books.google.com/books?id=G_NV0wPXmigC. 
11. ^ ^{a b} Westmoreland, Susan; Beth Alle (2004). Good Housekeeping Great American Classics Cookbook. Hearst. p. 24. ISBN 9781588162809. http://books.google.com/books?id=coA1FiirGxUC. 
12. ^ Lynne M. Olver The Truth about Clams Casino Winter 2009, Vol. 9, No. 1, Pages 88–90 Gastronomica
13. ^ ^{a b} Merrill Shindler American Dish: 100 Recipes from Ten Delicious Decades Citadel Press, 2003 ISBN 080652488X, 9780806524887 160 pages page 43 [2]